Focus on Praggnanandhaa at Norway Chess opener

Stavanger (Norway), May 27: Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa will start his campaign against Alireza Firouzja of France, while his sister R Vaishali will face women’s world champion Wenjun Ju of China in the first round of the Norway Chess tournament here.
Split in to two parts this year, the Norway chess tournament will have six top GMs in men’s section and six top women players competing for a total prize pool of 1690000 NOK (around USD 1.6 million). In both the sections, the prize fund is identical with 750000 NOK (or about USD 70000) reserved for the winner.
World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen will feature in a classical chess tournament after a long hiatus. The local hero last played the World Cup under classical chess rules that he won but it remains to be seen if he is able to retain the same form after the gap.
All eyes will be on reigning world champion Ding Liren of China who is set to defend his title later this year against India’s D Gukesh. Since winning his last world championship match against Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia, Liren has played very less competitive chess. In the opener, Liren will take on Carlsen.
Apart from these four, the American duo of Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura will complete the six-player line up. Caruana and Hikaru are pitted against each other in the first round.
The format is pretty interesting that makes this event different from others. To start with, none of the matches can end with the split of points. (PTI)